Mt. Pleasant's magical postseason run ends at hands of Flint Powers

FLINT — From having one total win heading into the holiday break to finding its way into a regional final, this has been quite a ride for the Mt. Pleasant High School hockey program.

Just in the last week, the Oilers secured the program’s first-ever postseason victory over Freeland/Nouvel which was then followed by a thriller of an overtime win versus Big Rapids to propel Mt. Pleasant into Saturday’s regional final.

That is where the fun finally came to a screeching halt.

Playing a program in Flint Powers Catholic with much more postseason experience in its program’s history, the Oilers could not keep pace as they fell 9-3 to end their magical run.

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Even so, Mt. Pleasant went from a 1-8 team at one point to one that finished 10-17-2 on the strength of seven wins and a tie over its last 11 games.

“Our senior leaders and our best players, we put the onus on them,” Oilers coach Alex Weisenberger said about the team’s excellent finish to the season. “Our best players needed to be our best players night in and night out for us to have a chance. Everyone else picked up the lead from that.”

The four seniors on the roster - Daniel Pulver, Nick Coscarelly, Hakim Senni and Nathan Pittsley - will be “sorely missed” according to Weisenberger, but they provided the foundation to make future playoff runs for a program that is still youthful with 10 underclassmen on the roster.

But it showed Saturday afternoon that the Oilers are still a year or two away from perhaps taking it to that next level where the likes of Flint Powers and other top programs reside.

“We ran into a buzzsaw today and we just made a few too many mistakes with the puck early that put us behind the eight ball. You can’t do that against that team,” Weisenberger said.

Flint Powers (21-5-1) scored in every way imaginable in the first six minutes of the contest. That meant an even-strength goal 22 seconds into the game, a power play tally, and then an unfortunate short-handed breakaway opportunity that resulted in a third goal at the 11:06 mark to make it 3-0.

A fourth goal was added by the Chargers late in the first period, while they then made it 5-0 with another strike just over five minutes into period two.

Finally the Oilers managed to get on the scoreboard shortly thereafter as a blast from just inside the blue line by Tyler Jackson was redirected in by Robert Backus, who got credit for the goal to cut the deficit to 5-1.

Unfortunately, the response by Flint Powers was three more goals including a dagger on a breakaway with only 1.9 seconds remaining in the period to up the lead to 8-1.

With one more goal resulting in a mercy, the Cougars nearly found that score early in the third period as a slap shot ricocheted loudly off the crossbar but it went for not to keep Mt. Pleasant alive.

And life the Oilers still had as it responded with two goals to make the score more respectable.

Senni made it 8-2 as he weaved through the defense in highlight fashion and put one past Flint Powers goalie Casey Korhonen. Alex Dickinson recorded an assist on the score.

Mt. Pleasant then added another on a power play goal from Zach Heeke, whose slap shot went top shelf to bring the score to a five-goal margin with just over 10 minutes remaining.

There was a great opportunity to add another in the ensuing couple of minutes as the Oilers had a lengthy 5-on-3 power play, but another goal could not be found.

Flint Powers scored its final goal with 4:43 remaining.

“It wasn’t our day today, but our seniors put this team on their shoulders this season and I couldn’t be prouder of what they have done for this program,” added Weisenberger.

About the Author

Nate Schneider is a sports writer at the Morning Sun. He covers CMU football, men's basketball and baseball. Nate enjoys craft beer and vegetarianism. He struggles with his daily fashion sense. Reach the author at nschneider@michigannewspapers.com
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